I'm refraining from a full-on blog post, but I will say this much. I ignore most link requests I get because I know better and I link to what I think my readers will benefit from. That wasn't always the case and I learned the hard, costly way.

On the other side of the coin, I don't waste my time reporting such people either. I have far more important things to do with my time than play Internet Police. That's not my shtick. I'd rather write layman's term tutorials, commentaries and reviews that help new "webmasters".

Regardless, I had to learn the hard, costly way because the vast majority of resources out there for the amateur or novice webmaster rarely, if ever, cover topics like linking to bad neighborhoods, paid links, Search Engine policies, etc. Most just focus on teaching you a little high-level code and some basics of marketing. Much of which is full of pre-2002 advice which will get your site banned in a New York minute now.

I think it's a personal decision whether you should play Internet Police and report such unscrupulous "SEOs". Personally, a better use of my time is to get in the trenches with new "webmasters" and teach them what they are obviously not learning elsewhere. October 02, 2008

I've never been banned, nor have any of my clients. That doesn't mean I'm willing to cosign what Google is doing.

90% of my clients are local Mom and Pop businesses who only display content related to their "brick and mortar" store. These are sites with Zero advertisements on them. The very few sites that get profit from their sites are the few who have a shopping cart on them.

As squeaky clean as these sites are, I still have to do a tight rope act explaining all this to my clients so that what linking they do engage in doesn't appear to be "sponsored".

The issue I have isn't so much my business. It's my job to know what search engines are doing and how to work within their systems. For the sites I own and run, I play the game. If any of my sites were to get banned, it would be because I took a calculated risk and calculated wrong.

The people I'm concerned about are my "Maw and Paw" clients who think booting a computer means kicking it. It's hard enough explaining to a local, home town company that's been in business for 100 years that they *have* to have a web presence to remain competative. When you start going into why they cannot link to xyz.com site, their head starts spinning like something from The Exorcist.

Bottom line, Google is creating an atmosphere where big money and those "in the know" can succeed, but small companies, and the unfortunately ignorant can get banned or will perform poorly for doing things that are considered acceptable practice in the business world. Ever hear of a kickback? ;-) Some of these Maw and Paw companies make a good percentage of their living by promoting specific products or services in their store front. Trying to explain to them that they cannot do the same thing on their website is no picnic.

"I focus on giving my visitors quality information, now if I want to start getting some profit at the same time, I should be careful and don't let my trust and my loyal visitors to go away because of that."

That was the point of my mini-rant. I too focus on giving my visitors quality information. Usually, I don't get 1 cent for providing that information, but sometimes I do. My visitors trust is paramount.

What I have issue with is that Google is throwing the baby out with the bath water with this "Payola" initiative. They are making it extremely difficult for "mom and pop" businesses, like mine, to succeed unless we play by Google's rules. Who died and made Google the Internet Police?

Maria, as a whole, I agree that if you want to play the Google game, you have to play by Google's rules. Google isn't the only search engine and we do have alternatives. However, as the market leader in search, it is not a fair market practice to put in place policies that stiffle the social aspects that are what build the Internet in the first place.

How often do you read comments like what Rand expressed about being afraid to link to a site? When a search engine is creating such widespread fear that people are scared to link to other sites, that's going a bit too far, don't you think?

Search Engine != Internet Police

Search Engine == Categorized Index of Web Sites based on relevancy

If my content is relevant, what business of Google's is it if I'm getting paid for that content or not? Wouldn't that be Google imposing it's will on MY business?

EDIT: I too like the openess and constructive debate here. It's a refreshing change from needless censorship. ;-)

Does anyone else think that Google's crack down on paid links is a absolutely rediculous?

I own several websites, all of which link out extensively. Some links are paid, some are not. However, ALL of the links are relevant to my content. Why should I have to be afraid of the big G if I'm getting paid to point people to a resource that is actually RELEVANT to my content? Even when I was using TLA, I manually reviewed links to make sure they would be of interest to my visitors.

I can see the point with teeth whitening gels on a sci-tech site. As highly tauted as Google's relevancy is, you would think that Google would be able to spot these irrelevant links out a mile away and ONLY single them out.

How freakin' hard is it? Really? When an entire page's copy is about asteroids and towards the end there is a link for teeth whitening gel???

This is one time when I think the big G is waaaay overstepping it's boundries. It's my site, I should be able to link to whoever I darn well please. Google's job is to index my site, NOT dictate what I can display on it! >X-(

//Begin Joke

Anybody want to join the International Association of Webmasters Against Google (IAWAG)? I have the domains registered if anyone is interested. :-D